The Night Crew

Chapter 21

'Listen to her.' The man's voice was like a snake's, a hiss of pleasure.

Jake had bolted from the car, was running down the street toward the cop car at Harriett's building.

Then the woman in Anna's ear: 'Anna, he stabbed me,' and, less certainly, 'It doesn't hurt much, but I can't move.'

'Where are you?'

'She's around, that's where,' the man said. 'I saw you tonight. What are you doingare you looking for me? If you're looking for me, I'll tell you what, that's not a good idea. I'll cut the top off your goddamn head off and eat your brains.'

The voice was right: the voice was the man in the parking lot, the man who'd shot Creek. Anna listened so hard it hurt, listened for anything in the background that might help her, other voices. Nothing but the hiss of the phone.

'Anna, are you there?'

'I'm here,' she said.

'You're not very talkative.'

'I amlooking for you, you asshole; and this better be a rotten joke.'

'Or what?' He laughed. 'What're you going to do?'

'I'll kill you,' Anna said.

'Oh, you'll kill me? You hear that, China? She's going to kill me. Here, you wanna talk?'

China's voice was a whisper. 'I can't see; I'm getting really cold.'

'Let her go,' Anna screamed. 'Let her go.'

'No. She's gonna die,' the man said casually. 'You know why? Because I needed a woman, especially after what you did the other night. You cut the shit out of me, Anna. I'm all fucked up.' And just off the phone, 'You're gonna die, aren't you China? Look at the blood already.' And back to the phone: 'She's dying; it's draining right out of her. I cut her legs. It's really purple, the blood, you'd think it'd be redder.'

'You fucker,' Anna shouted, and without thinking, she threw the phone like a baseball, and it bounced across the blacktop, shedding its battery, flipping and bouncing along. Norden said, 'What, Anna, what'd he say.?'

But Anna was already running after the phone. She scooped it up, and the battery, jammed the battery back in, said, 'Hello?' Pushed the send button, said, 'Hello, hello, oh, Jesus.'

Nobody there. She stood there with the phone in her hand, looked at Norden, then turned around to look down the street at Harnett's building. A cop hurried out of the building, followed by Harper. As they scrambled to the cop car, Harper turned to look toward her. Anna spread her hands, a gesture that said, Gone.

'Can't be right,' Anna moaned. She was kneeling on the front seat of the BMW while Harper cranked it back down toward Sunset. Wyatt would meet them, way out of his jurisdiction, bringing along a couple of L.A. homicide cops, BJ's was still open, people in black climbing the stairs toward the party room. Anna tore through the main floor, peering at tables; eyes followed as she checked each one, and a bartender said, 'Hey.' and finally she caught a waitress and asked, 'Have you seen China Lake?'

'If she's here, she's probably back in one of the bathrooms, that's where she usually is,' the woman smirked.

Anna burst into the women's restroom, and two women standing by the counter spun to look at her, one still with a touch of powder cocaine at her nose. 'Christ.' One of the stalls was closed, and Anna banged on the door, 'China, is that you?'

'No, go away,' a woman's voice, shrill, not China.

Anna went back out, saw Harper striding toward her, Norden in his wake. She went on down the hall and pushed into the men's room. A guy was standing at a urinal and Anna said, 'Have you seen China Lake?'

The guy tried to shrug, then said, 'What's that?'

'Damn it.' She went back into the hall and Harper caught her and said, 'Nothing?'

'No.'

'She's not upstairs,' Harper said. He put both hands on his head, trying to think, and a bouncer came up behind him and said, 'You guys got a problem?'

'Yeah,' Anna said. 'Have you seen China Lake? Or seen her with anybody?'

'What's the problem?'

'We think a fruitcake grabbed her. She could be in serious trouble,' Harper said. He was using his cop voice, and the bouncer said, 'You know, she was here an hour ago. I think I saw her going out, she was alone. Let's go ask Larry.'

He led them back through the club, to the front, and the; stairs leading up to the party room. The doorman at the top' looked down, and the bouncer yelled, 'Hey, Larry, you seen China?'

'She left.'

'Did she leave with anyone? You see anyone?'

'She was by herself, far as I know.'

Anna asked, 'Did you see a guy in here with a bandage on his face? Right by his eye? Or maybe a big bruise?'

He shook his head: 'Nobody here like that.'

'You think you could have missed it?'

'No way. Thing like that, a guy's probably a troublemaker. We keep our eye out for troublemakers.'

The outside door opened behind them, and Wyatt came through, followed by two men in suits. The bouncer spotted them and said, 'Shit,' and looked up the stairs at Larry and made a quick throat-cutting sign. Larry stepped out of sight.

'She's not here,' Wyatt asked, coming up.

Anna shook her head: 'No. She's gone.'

'Could be a joke,' Harper said. 'Louis wouldn't.'

Anna looked at him as though he were crazy, and said, 'No, Louis wouldn't. Jesus, Jake, this is the guy.'

'You're sure?' Wyatt asked.

'I'm sure: I knew the voice,' Anna said.

'Had you heard it beforeother than at the parking lot, when he jumped you?' Wyatt asked.

Anna held her hands to her temples, as Harper had: so hard to think, so little time. Or no time at all. 'I think. I don't know, I'm getting confused. But when he was talking to me in the parking lot, God, it seemed familiar. Not like everyday familiar, but I knew the voice.'

'Face to face, or on the phone?' asked one of the L.A. cops.

The phone? She hadn't thought of that.

'God, I don't know. I talk to a hundred people every night, running around. I don't know.'

Harper chipped in: 'The guy on the door didn't see anyone with a bite on his face. Says he would have seen it.'

'All right,' Wyatt said. He seemed weary, almost too tired to deal with it. 'Let's see if anybody here saw China leave with someone. We got a couple of cars coming.'

'That's all?' Anna asked. 'That's all we can do?'

'Can you think of anything else?' Wyatt asked.

'I'm outa here.' She stepped toward the door, but Wyatt caught her arm.

'Look, we finally got something going on thiswe're pulling together a multi-department task force to track this guy,' he said. 'We're gonna need you. We need to set you up where we can watch you.'

'I think it's too late for that,' Anna said. 'He turned some kind of corner with that phone call. He's gotta know you'll be all over him now.'

'We still need to talk with you.'

'I'll call you; I'd really appreciate it if you'd tell me if you shake anything out of these people,' she said, gesturing UP the stairs. 'And China: if you hear anything.'

Wyatt looked at Harper. 'Jake, can you control her a little? She's gonna wind up dead.'

Jake said, 'I'll try.'

'You wouldn't hold anything back on us?'

Jake shook his head: 'No. We're not playing games: we just want somebody to get him. I don't think there's anything. Well, we thought for a while that he might be a little older, white-haired, but that's gone up in smoke. Anna thinks he's young.'

Wyatt turned to Anna, whose eyes seemed to have unfocused, staring at a spot on the other side of Wyatt's face. Wyatt said, 'Anna? Anna?'

Her eyes snapped back and a small, uncertain smile crinkled her face. 'Yeah. I heard you. He's young, I'm sure of it. Forget white hair. That was a wild-goose chase.' And to Jake: 'Let's go.'

Jake's eyebrows went up, but he nodded and said to Wyatt, 'Talk to you tomorrow.'

Norden was waiting out on the sidewalk: she didn't like cops, and now she was leaning against a fire hydrant, smoking, watching the light bars on the cop cars.

'We all done?' she asked.

'Yeah, for tonight,' Anna said.

'Drop me at my place; I want to get Harnett's files out of the car,' Norden said.

They dropped her at an apartment off La Brea, waited until I she was inside, then Jake turned to Anna and said, 'What I was that about the white-haired guy and the wild-goose chase? Harnett was a pretty hot possibility an hour ago. He might not be the killer, but he's involved somewhere.'

Anna shook her head and said, 'Aw, he might have known Jason or something, just a coincidence, but he's not the white-haired man. I know who the white-haired man is.'

Jake did a comic double-take: 'Yeah? Well, speak up.'

'It's Wyatt.'

'What?' He grinned, expecting a punchline.

'Yeah, an older guy with white hair. You were talking about it and I was looking at him, and all of a sudden, I realized it washim. We were thinking the white-haired guy was after Creek or me, but reallyit was Wyatt checking up on Pam Glass, and what was happening with her and Creek, and he didn't want us to know it. That's why he took off. He's hung up on Pam, and he didn't want Pam to know he was hanging around.'

Harper thought it over for a few seconds, then sighed: 'Are you positive?'

'Ninety-nine percent. Next time we see Wyatt, take a good look at him. He's the guy.'

Harper nodded. 'All right. Christ, we commit a felony, we break into somebody's office and fuck him up and he's an innocent bystander.'

'Not especially innocent,' Anna said. 'But we do have a few felonies behind us.'

Harper said, 'Yeah, we do. And if we're not very careful, they're gonna start catching up with us.' He fed the car into a U-turn, and started back toward the hills.

Anna sat up that night; took her gun out of her pocket and spun the cylinder, dumped the shells, dry-fired it at the TV, when the TV was on. Reloaded, looked at it. Waited, for something, not knowing what.

Jake sat up with her for an hour or two, then went to bed. 'You've got to get some sleep,' he said.

'How?'

He looked at her, shrugged. 'If you decide to go out, wake me up. I want to come along. If he's identified me, he could know we're out here. So we've got to take it easy.'

'Okay.'

He pointed a finger at her: 'I swear to God, if you leave without waking me up, I'll kick your ass.'

The dawn came slowly, first a false lightening, then a darkness again, then the real dawn, a great, unhappy light, like an old piece of newsprint being pushed over the mountains to the east.

Anna was sitting in an easy chair, maybe asleep, the gun in her lap, when Jake came out and called her: 'Anna?'

Her eyes either opened, or were already openshe didn't know, it didn't seem like her mind had ever stopped. 'Yeah?'

'Jesus, did you get any sleep at all?'

'I don't know,' she said. She felt wooden. She pushed herself out of the chair, went out to the kitchen, with Harper trailing behind. 'Coffee?'

'I'm gonna try to get a couple more hours. Why don't you come in and lay down?'

'Jake, jeez.'

'Give me ten minutes to put you to sleep. Just come on in.'

She followed him back to the bedroom, pulled off her shirt and jeans and bra, pulled on one of his T-shirts and lay down. He snuggled behind her, said, 'Close your eyes.'

'Jake.'

'Just close them, okay? Ten minutes.'

She could feel his arm around her waist, the tops of his thighs on the bottom of hers. She opened her eyes briefly, with difficulty, to look at the clock, and saw the glint of the gun on the nightstand; and closed her eyes again.

The phone woke her.

She startled upright, felt Jake's arm come off her, looked at the clock: She'd been down for four hours. Her mouth tasted like old features taken off a tar road.

Jake was saying, 'Yah. Aw, man, where. all right.'

When he hung up, she rolled over on her back and looked at him, caught his eyes trying to look away. 'China?'

'Yeah. She's dead. They found her body out in Glendale. That was Wyatt, and.'

'What?'

'She's pretty cut up.'

Anna jumped out of bed: 'Let's get over there.'

'Anna.'

'I need to see this,' she insisted.

'Why?' he asked, exasperated.

'Because. So get dressed.' Because she was storing it up. Because she was holding on to these crimes, all these insults, squeezing them into herself.

She drove: Jake was so reluctant that she finally got the keys and climbed into the front seat, and he caught up and piled into the passenger side, and she took them over the hills and east into Glendale. On the way, she called Wyatt, got switched around, and was finally left with a promise that he'd call her. He did, five minutes later:

'Where are you?'

'On the way.'

'I don't think you should.'

'I can identify her,' Anna said. 'I saw her twelve hours ago. Are you there?' she asked.

'On the way.'

'See you there.' And she rang off, before he could object.

'There', was a cluster of vehicles with light bars, a half-dozen men looking down a highway embankment: something she saw every night, now harsher in the light of day.

Wyatt hadn't arrived yetshe didn't recognize any of the cops at the scene. They waved her on down the road, but she stopped, and when the cop came up, she said, 'We're supposed to meet Detective Wyatt here, from Santa Monica. He's on the task force: I talked to China last night, the woman you think is down there. He wanted me to see if I could identify her.'

'Okay. just pull up to the head of the line.'

She drove up past the last car and turned to Harper: 'Are you coming?' she asked.

'Yeah. You better leave the gun in the car, though. They'll spot it and take it away from you.'

'Good thought.' She took the gun out of her jacket pocket and pushed it under the front seat. 'Let's go.'

China was halfway down the embankment, wrapped in the dress she'd been wearing the night before. She'd landed on her face, apparently, but the gravel on the embankment hadn't done any real damage. It'd cut, but there was no blood to run; the cuts looked like scratches in beeswax.

Anna and Harper dropped carefully down the embankment, escorted by a young uniformed cop who watched their faces as they went down, down past the foot with a sockwhat used to be called an ankletand the foot without one, with the thighs impolitely apart, unguarded by underwear, the trails of dark pubic hair, down to the face that had bitten into the gravel.

'Yeah,' Anna said, and Harper said, 'Goddammit.' Anna said to the young cop, 'That's China Lake. She's an actress. Was.'

'Do you know next of kin?' the young cop asked.

'No, but. I could find out.'

'Anything you could get, we'd appreciate.'

'Yeah.' She never looked back at the body, but she held the image of China's face to her heart. Squeezing it. Filing the memories with the hate.

'Do you want to wait for Wyatt?' Harper asked, as they got back to the top of the embankment.

'What for?' Anna asked bitterly. 'The guy couldn't find his butt with both hands and a searchlight?'

'Not fair,' Harper said, as he followed Anna back to the car.

'Fuck fair,' she said.

'All right, princess. So now what?'

'We gotta go back to my place, so I can get my car. I don't want you ferrying me all over the place.'

'Anna, I'm happy to.'

'I know, I know, but I want my car,' she said. And she added, 'I'm sorry, Jake. But China.'

The midday traffic wasn't too bad, and they made it back to Anna's in a half hour. She backed the Toyota out of the garage, as Harper waited in the street, then followed him out, up the San Diego, over the hills to his house. Whey they got there, she said, 'You know, I forgot something. I'm gonna go away for a while.'

'I better come with you.'

'Nope. I'm doing this on my owndon't worry, I'll be okay.' She took in his face, softened, and said, 'Listen, I just want to drive around a while, by myself, and get my head straight. And see Creek at the hospital. I'll be careful. I've got this.' She patted the pistol in her pocket.

'Goddammit, Anna, you betterbe careful.'

He took her shoulders and kissed her, insistently; she let herself relax into the kiss, held it for a moment, then pushed him away. 'Hold that thought,' she said, 'I'll be back.'

He came out to watch her go, and just before she did, she ran the window down and said, 'He might have tracked us out hereso be careful yourself.'

'It's all private property, and people are pretty insistent about that. He'd have a hard time sneaking in, during the day, anyway,' Harper said. 'But I'll watch.'

Anna went back out the way she came, watching the rearview mirror. She had cars behind her, from time to time, but nothing that looked consistent. She continued back into town, to her house, went in, gathered a few clothes, stuck them in a leather satchel and carried the satchel out to the car.

'Anna, what's happening?' A voice from the sky, and she looked up.

'Hobie?'

'Come on up; we're having margaritas.'

'Aw, I'm on my way to see Creek.'

'How is he?' She could just see the top half of Hobie's moon face past the shingles on a dormer.

'Better, I guess. They said he had to sit still for a few days, but one of these days he'll be up.'

'That's great.'

'Listen, this jerk, this killer, the cops think he might be tracking me. If you or Jim see anyone around, take down some tag numbers, huh? I'm carrying my cell phone all the time, you've got the number.'

'Give it to me again.'

She gave him the number, and started out again, down the one-way street that took her out of the canal district, and out to the hospital. Watched the rearview mirror. Nothing that seemed furtive, nothing that seemed consistent. But Anna read thriller novels, and thought she could probably trail somebody all over L.A. without being spotted. You stay ten cars back, with traffic the way it was, and you'd never be spotted.

Of course, once he saw which way she was going, he might figure that she was heading for the hospital. There wasn't much on-street parking, he'd figure her for the ramp. She worked it out: and when the hospital came up, she turned in at the ramp, found a place on the third floor.

Put her pistol in her main pocket, her trigger finger wrapped around the front of the trigger guard so she wouldn't accidentally fire it. Checked the mirrors, got out and walked self-consciously to the hospital entrance.

She saw no one who seemed out of place, who seemed to be watching, who seemed at all interested in her.

Except Creek. When she walked into his room, Creek was on his feet, like a bear in a dressing gown, trailing plastic lines that went to a saline bottle hung from a three-wheeled pole. Pam Glass sat in a chair by the window, knitting.

Creek turned as Anna came in, and grinned, and she said, 'My God, what are you doing out of bed?' and looked at Glass for an answer.

'I'm getting better,' Creek said, but his voice was a croak, and his face still seemed gray.

'The doctor told him to,' Glass said, answering Anna.

'They're sure that's okay?' Anna asked Glass.

'They think it's great,' Glass said. 'As long as he doesn't overdo it.'

'"Overdo" is his middle name,' Anna said.

They discussed it for another fifteen seconds, Anna and Glass talking to each other, checking Creek like he was a defective car, until Creek said, 'Hey, am I the village idiot or something?'

'You're not that responsible,' Anna said. Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. 'Jeez, I'm glad to see you up.'

'Where's Harper?' Creek asked. 'He's supposed to be watching you.'

'I had to get away for a little whileI'm being careful,' Anna said. To Glass: 'Have you heard the latest?'

Glass nodded: 'The actress. Brutal. They added a half-dozen guys to the task force, and there's gonna be some news about it.'

Anna recoiled: 'I won't come into it, will I?'

Glass grinned. 'Can't stand the heat, huh? You know how it is. a couple of days, and something'll leak.'

'Yeah. jeez.' Anna pulled at her lip, staring at Creek. 'You: get back into bed.'

'Why? I feel okay.'

'Cause I want to take Pam away for a few minutes, and I don't want you dropping dead while we're gone.'

'You'd rather have me laying dead in bed?'

'Yeah, as a matter of fact. Then it wouldn't be my fault for not telling you to lay down.'

Creek shook his head, not following the logic, but sat on the bed, and finally pulled his legs up.

'Stay there,' Glass said.

'Arf, arf,' Creek said. 'Like the family dog. Stay, Fido.'

In the hall, Glass said, smiling but intent, 'I've been wanting to talk to you.'

'About Creek.'

'Yes. Right now, if you crooked your finger, he'd come running. I want to know if you're going to crook.'

Anna shook her head. 'I'm not sure you're right about thatbut anyway, Creek and I. I don't know. We went past that point. Or I did. And I think he did, but maybe he hasn't figured it out yet.'

'Why didn't. you know.'

'He came along at the wrong time, and by the time I was, you know, ready for something. it was too late. We'd been sort of. brotherly-sisterly for too long.'

'He never tried to.' They were both fumbling for words, as though they were creating a special Creek vocabulary,'. develop anything?'

'Not directly. Creek looks like a bear, and he's been to jail, and the Marines, and all thatbut he's sensitive. He usually knows what I'm thinking before I do, and if you guys last, he'll get that way with you.'

'He already is, a little.'

Anna nodded, grinned and poked Glass on the arm: 'He's a good deal.'

Glass blew hair out of her face and her shoulders drooped, as if her blood pressure had just dropped fifty points. And she said, 'You needed something from me?'

'I just needed to talk to you about your partner.'

'Huh?'

'I think he's the guy we saw up here, that we chased. I think he was trying to check on you.'

The other woman's eyes defocused for a few seconds, then she nodded briskly and said, 'Yeah. Damn.'

'So.'

'I'll talk to him,' Glass said. Then she grinned ruefully and said, 'Men really do come from another planet, you know?'

Anna was ready when she went back into the parking garage: but nothing happened. Nothing. The garage was so silent that no television movie in history could have resisted the moment: the killer and Anna would be there, toe to toe, and Anna would kill him.

Or something.

She was barely prepared for nothing at all.

In the car, she went back to her house, parked nose-in to the garage, left the engine running. Hobie called down, 'Offer's still open,' and she yelled, 'Thanks, Hobie, but I'm out of here.'

She sat in the house for a moment, then walked through the kitchen and checked the lock on the canal-side door, and then went back through the house and out, locked the front and drove back out.

She thought this way: If the killer was watching her, he wouldn't watch from within the canal area. The road through the district was one-way, and narrow, and nobody could wait on it without being noticed. He'd watch either the entrance or the exit, and pick her up coming or going.

All right. Let him pick her up.

She touched the gun in her pocket.

When she told him on the phone that she was going to kill him, it wasn't idle chatter. If she could get him in the right place, she'd do it.

But she'd have to handle it carefully.

She liked Jake a lot, liked everything about himor, at least, thought she could straighten out the parts of him that weren't quite right. A snip here, a tuck there, and he'd be presentable. But she liked his looks, his attitude, the way he lived.

But she didn't quite understand, deep in her heart, why, he hadn't killed the dealer in the hotel. She would have.

So if she was going to stir this killer out of his muck. Jake couldn't know.